Our little Silver Laced Wyandotte and Buff Orpington chicks are finally starting to lay eggs for us! We got them from Orscheln’s (which has since been bought by Bomgaars) as my 2023 Mother’s Day present. Watch how we prepared for the baby chicks here.
Brian worked hard to get our big beautiful coop built and they are now happily thriving hens that love to free range our property… and lay eggs in random places. 🙂
My sister-in-law called me and told me that there was a person on Facebook that wanted to rehome her entire flock for free! The flock consisted of Rhode Island Red hens, Cinnamon Queen hens, Welsummer hens, Australorp hens, a Barred Rock hen, and Barred Rock roosters. The Facebook poster said that we could either take all or we could take none. I didn’t necessarily want roosters, but I wasn’t about to pass up laying age hens. My sister-in-law picked up the flock for us and we brought them to our homestead.
When introducing a new animal to your homestead, it is important to quarantine them away from your current animals. We set up both of our little coops to separate the roosters from each other and we divided up the new hens between them. We also had to keep our current hens in their run so we could make sure they did not come into contact with the new additions.
The new flock looked pretty sickly. The poor things had been severely neglected by the Facebook poster’s son, so I got to work. I added oregano to their feed for a natural immune booster and red pepper flakes for a natural dewormer. Also as a precaution, I went ahead and treated them with a full round of Corrid to make sure they were not carrying coccidia. Coccidiosis is one of the most rapidly spread diseases among animals. You can read more about Coccidia here.
I kept the new flock quarantined for a full 30 days before starting to introduce them into our big chicken coop. They all look peppy and healthy now. Brian told one of his coworkers that we had a bunch of new chickens and the coworker asked if we would be willing to trade one of their roosters for two of our chickens. I gave them 4 chickens (one of each of the new breeds of chickens) and they gave us a beautiful Blue Laced Red Wyandotte rooster.
To add to the fun, my favorite Buff Orpington has gone broody twice and has successfully hatched out 8 chicks for me.
Last month our best friends informed us that they had to move back into town and would not be able to bring their chickens with them. Sooo.. we inherited MORE chickens.
Our current flock total is now 21 hens and 5 roosters… and I’m planning to purchase some Lavender Orpington chicks next week.
Chicken math is awesome. 😀
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